THE
BROWN DAILY HERALD vol. cxlix, no. 10
since 1891
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2014
U. joins aid compact for N.Y. students
NECAP test results show mixed success
2013 exam scores come after release of proposed 2015 budget calling for higher education spending
Say Yes Higher Education Compact assists with college costs for lowincome families
By JILLIAN LANNEY SENIOR STAFF WRITER
By LINDSAY GANTZ CONTRIBUTING WRITER
inside
METRO
ARJUN NARAYEN / HERALD
The General Assembly is considering a bill to require the labeling of genetically modified products throughout the state. In U.S. supermarkets, more than two-thirds of food items contain genetically modified ingredients.
R.I. enters national GMO debate Bill requires labeling of GMO products, but opponents argue modified foods pose minimal risk By KERRI COLFER CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Rep. Dennis Canario, D-Portsmouth, Little Compton, Tiverton, has introduced a bill that would require food containing genetically modified ingredients to be labeled “Produced with Genetic Engineering,” according to a General Assembly press release. The bill was heard Wednesday by the House Committee on Health, Education and Welfare.
METRO
Genetically modified ingredients can be found in approximately 70 percent of food products sold in supermarkets nationwide, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “A genetically engineered food is a plant or meat product that has had its DNA artificially altered in a laboratory by genes from other plants, animals, viruses or bacteria,” according to the press release. Connecticut and Maine are the only states to have passed similar legislation, though these bills contain provisions that prevent them from taking effect until neighboring states also adopt labeling laws, according to a press release from the Center for Food Safety. Thirty other states are also currently debating labeling legislation,
Canario said. “This is a right-to-know issue,” Canario said. “Most people don’t know about genetically modified organisms, and if the package is clearly marked that it contains GMOs, people can make decisions on whether or not to consume it.” Companies should be required to post labels with information about GMOs, just as they have been required to label foods’ nutritional facts, said Gretchen Gerlach ’14, an environmental studies concentrator. “When they first started labeling food as organic, a lot of people didn’t know what it meant, but as it was in the media, people definitely learned about it,” Gerlach said. The bill’s opponents have » See GMO, page 7
The University agreed in December to join the Say Yes Higher Education Compact, an initiative that offers to provide up to 100 percent of college tuition costs to eligible low-income high school students. The compact ensures that students with a family income at or below $75,000 living in the greater Buffalo and Syracuse, N.Y., areas are eligible for the program’s benefits at participating universities, according to the Say Yes website. Say Yes to Education — a national nonprofit group — began the program in 2008 with high schools in the Syracuse area and has since expanded to include high schools in Buffalo. The University signed the compact at the same time as 10 other institutions, including Yale, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Williams College. Brown and Yale were the last two Ivy League universities to sign the compact — the other six institutions had done so by September. » See TUITION, page 2
Corsets lace together in social commentary Play explores struggle of black women and other minorities in America at turn of 20th century By EMILY WOOLDRIDGE SENIOR STAFF WRITER
When Esther Mills, a 35-year-old black woman living in New York City at the turn of the 20th century, admits to a client from Fifth Avenue, “I’ve only been to the theater once,” the audience members are made all too aware of their own privileged position. Viewers’ suit buttons and diamond necklaces glare in the dim theater light. The women in the audience who, prior to showtime, lamented the lack of coat racks realize their complaints mirror those of Esther’s high-society clients.
ARTS & CULTURE
Now playing at Trinity Repertory Company, “Intimate Apparel,” directed by Janice Duclos and written by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage ’86, brings to life the struggle of women and minorities searching for the American Dream before women’s suffrage and the civil rights movement. Esther, played by Mia Ellis MFA’12, creates corsets for New York’s most tantalizing personalities without ever feeling the satin and beads against her own skin. Instead, Esther keeps her dreams sewn inside a quilt — she holes away money, saving up in hope of opening a beauty shop. She cannot read the letters she receives from a stranger working on the Panama Canal without her clients’ help. In a particularly striking scene, this stranger — George, played by Joe Wilson, Jr. — writes Esther in a letter, » See CORSETS, page 4
Metro
COURTESY OF MARK TUREK
When life is in pieces, Esther Mills, played by Mia Ellis MFA’12, turns to her sewing machine in Trinity Repertory Company’s “Intimate Apparel.”
Sports
Lorne Adrain launches his Democratic mayoral campaign at Providence’s Friendship Cafe
Plastic Waste Reduction Act reintroduced in General Assembly
Men’s and women’s squash drop two Ivy games each to stay winless in conference
Men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams both set pool records en route to close losses
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About two weeks after Gov. Lincoln Chafee ’75 P’14 P’17 highlighted education as a major priority in his proposed 2015 budget, Commissioner of Education Deborah Gist announced the results of the 2013 New England Common Assessment Program exam in her annual State of Education address Jan. 30. Though 73 percent of high school seniors passed the test, almost twothirds of 11th graders did not meet the state’s math proficiency requirements, signaling mixed results for the state’s efforts to improve standardized test scores. Chafee’s and Gist’s announcements will affect students at all levels of the public education system through measures such as implementing the NECAP graduation requirements, increasing funding and forming new school board councils. Chafee’s budget calls for a fourth consecutive year of complete funding for the state’s education funding formula and a second consecutive year of a tuition freeze for all public colleges and universities. Chafee recommended an expansion of the Rhode Island Board of Education with the creation of two separate councils, which will focus on K-12 education and post-secondary education, respectively. The proposed budget allots $816 million for education spending, a $38 million increase from the 2014 budget. Education takes up 28 percent of state spending, second only to expenditures on health and human services. Chafee’s budget proposal came just weeks before the release of the 2013 NECAP scores, a long-anticipated announcement due to Rhode Island’s decision to include proficiency on the assessment as a graduation requirement for high school students beginning with the class of 2014. Including the students who successfully retook the exam this fall, 73 percent of 12th graders scored well enough on their NECAP exams to graduate, Gist said in her address. While the 2013 NECAP results showed an improvement in test scores for 11th graders in both mathematics » See NECAP, page 7
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